Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Get High Marks From Employees: Glassdoor

Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Get High Marks From Employees: Glassdoor

by Nathan Eddy

Twitter's Roster of Characters Is the Happiest

Employees at the micro-blogging site praise the company's "extremely smart" co-workers, urban setting, and strong leadership and company values. Twitter CEO Dick Costolo holds a 97 percent approval rating on Glassdoor, and one employee noted "great food" was also a perk. One employee said the ability to work collaboratively with team members and individually on smaller projects is a plus.

LinkedIn Employees Power It to Second Place

The firm, which operates an online professional network to help members find jobs, connect with others and locate business opportunities, keeps its own employees happy. Workers feel a strong sense of community, while free, catered lunches and company outings were singled out as great fringe benefits. A whopping 92 percent of Glassdoor reviewers would recommend the company to a friend.

Facebook Has Friends in the Workplace

The social networking behemoth fosters community with its engineers through Hackathons, while perks like paid parental leave, help with daycare and adoption fees and a state-of-the-art fitness center at the headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., were among the highly rated perks. A strong medical, dental and vision insurance policy also attracts employees.

Guidewire Seen as a Guiding Light of Employement

The insurance software company's CEO, Marcus Ryu, is almost universally praised (98 percent) by employees who reviewed him. An excellent work-life balance, meaningful and useful intern projects, and a strong atmosphere fostering collaboration contributed to the company's high ranking.

Interactive Intelligence Employees Find the Company Smart

The company, which develops solutions for contact center automation and unified communications, won praise for its relaxed work environment, great benefits such as on-site cafe and free health clinic, paid education and training, but some feel the work-life balance could be better adjusted. Several reviewers noted work could be stressful and demanding at times.

Google Search Results Turn Up Happy Employees

While employees praise Google's generous compensation and benefits packages, as well as the numerous perks like on-site laundry, a fitness center and great food, management can be seen by some as inflexible, and one software engineer said he's seen the workload ruin marriages and have a severe effect on employees' well-being and mental health.

Trip Planning Site Orbitz Lands in Seventh Place

The travel company's exhaustive list of benefits, such as a casual dress code, travel discounts, on-site yoga classes, and strong life, disability and legal plans, drew praise from many employees. The company also promotes an eco-friendly environment.

Qualcomm Employees Communicate Their Satisfaction

A director of product management at the San Diego office called the wireless communications chip company the best high-tech place to work in the city. Respondents also cited strong health insurance policies, cash bonuses and a friendly, intelligent group of co-workers. However, many reviewers noted that the office atmosphere could become highly political at times, and some questioned the company's prospects for future growth.

Riverbed Gets a Stream of Good Marks

Chairman, president and CEO Jerry Kennelly of the application performance infrastructure specialist had a 97 percent approval rating on Glassdoor, and 91 percent of employees would recommend the firm to a friend. Though some employees pointed out the company's quality products and services, others said the challenge of being a multi-product company are having a toll on product management focus and senior lead strategy direction.

Intuit Gets Right to It for Employee Satisfaction

A senior applications operations engineer at the Woodland Hills, Calif., office lauded the open work environment where learning is encouraged with internal training. Some employees praised the company's work-life balance, but others said the financial and tax prep software company operates in silos, which can slow productivity.

How people feel about their employers often hinges on a mix of tangibles such as good food and intangibles like fairness and collaboration. Among the best places to work in tech are Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google and Orbitz, according to a Glassdoor ranking. The employment and career community specialist announced the winners of its annual Employees' Choice Awards, honoring the 50 Best Places to Work and 50 Best Medium-Sized Companies to Work for in 2014. The Employees' Choice Awards rely on the input of employees who provide feedback about their jobs, work environments and companies, through Glassdoor's anonymous online company review survey. Employees rated how satisfied they are with their companies, how they feel their CEO is leading the company, as well as key workplace attributes like career opportunities, compensation and benefits, culture and values, senior management and work-life balance. Respondents' comments about the strengths of their companies ranged from a "big emphasis on getting work done without any politics" to "upper management encourages growth and originality." Take a look the top 10 tech companies on Glassdoor's list.